My January has flown by with the blinders of new love and a surprise dunk into future possibility. As I watch the new become the norm, with time as my teacher, I am able to notice the sun once again. It's that accordion sensation of perspective. Change brings a narrowing and acceptance a broadening. But oh what a dazzling show. The sun shone brightly and couldn't help but be noticed. My energy was lifted, my smile so easy. Isn't it great when something so central, so simple, so obvious, comes back like a long forgotten friend? Like the moment we remember to breathe, or even to eat. It's silly and stupid how our gussied-up canoodles make life so darn complicated and profound sometimes that basic instincts, needs and desires get utterly neglected. When in reality, if they were always taken care of, the other abstract functionings that we long for so badly would easily be sustained. It's at times like this, when my focus has narrowed, that I look to nature. I notice the air and the sky and their beauty. I notice the sun when it chooses to shine. And gosh darn it, it works! Even here, in the frozen Wisconsin tundra.

I'm curious about the way things work. Things like learning, sensing emotion, sensing people. Or love. How does love work? How is it that I know when my students are visualizing what I told them to, or when their mind wanders? How is it that I know when someone understands what I've explained, or when they just say that they have? How is it that I can guess what song she'll like to sing, or I can sense the melody and rhythm he heard in his head? There are multitudes of concepts and studies, philosophers and religions that attempt to explain. Scientific theories and artistic interpreters have all had their say. But the truth is we cannot know the truth, at least not with any real certainty. Though some may deny this, which is their prerogative, there are just so many possibilities. How can we say that one's right? What gets me most is that within the many explanations, common threads run through and through. Talk of right thought, aligning will and dismissing the physical to find the spiritual - it's in Chuang Tzu, Zen, yoga and Christian Science, tarot and the IChing. Transpersonal psychology and other modalities speak of these things too, but none make it clear really how it all works. It's all - if we presume this is true, than this; or, I saw this and he said he did, too. I know we can improve at reading faces, feeling spaces, sensing danger and feeling the beat, but how are these things possible in the first place? Perhaps it's something to do with consciousness, the whole being greater than its parts, but the discussions on consciousness are stronger than ever. It's all conjecture, opinion, based on one's experiences. What they know, what they've learned, what they've come to understand. It's perspective, and no two are the same. Making love and monogamy really quite astounding. Or society for that matter, with our entire species' trust in currency and the law. All these things are just constructs we choose to believe in, for the sake of survival no less, but still metaphysical. Religion and government, electronic bank accounts. State lines and countries. We could all just choose to disbelieve and the world would go topsy-turvy.

Of course there are ways to define all these things, explanations which sound quite plausible and make all sorts of sense. But we're making sense of these explanations with the same tools that created them, so it makes sense that they'd make sense, as logic would have it. Without our reasoning though, we'd surely live in panic, so it's useful to have no matter how faulty the results. Really, it's just another process of reasoning to step back and refocus, seeing once again that really, who knows? So I'll keep looking to see what we see. I hope tomorrow will always look different to me. (that was kinda Dr. Seuss-y)